Fight for Chinese Domains

By
Chee-May Chow
January 7, 2006, 7:31 AM ET
2 min read

H O N G  K O N G, Dec. 4, 2000 -- A dispute between the UnitedStates and China over the control of Chinese-scripted Internetaddresses deepened today as China reiterated its claim overall Chinese language Internet domain names.

“We hope that Chinese people would have the mandate overChinese domain names,” Mao Wei, director of the China InternetNetwork Information Centre (CNNIC), told a news conference inHong Kong.

The statement is seen as yet another blow to U.S.-basedVeriSign Inc. which began offering registrations inChinese with “.com,” “.net” and “.org” extensions last month.

VeriSign has identified mainland China as a key market withits rapidly growing Internet penetration.

The company established itself at the top of the Webregistration business through its US$20 billion acquisition ofNetwork Solutions Inc. in June.

International Spat

CNNIC officials have accused VeriSign of infringingon China’s sovereignty and of introducing an inferior standard.

As an alternative, CNNIC has been selling its own versionof Chinese registration with the “.cn” extension as well asextensions ending with Chinese characters.

The body announced today it has received around 820,000registrations since the launch of the service in earlyNovember.

Many confused businesses and individuals have rushed toregister for both competing services for fear of losing out inthe future.

Cybersquatting Issues

Hong Kong’s Chinese Domain Name Corporation (C-DN), whichcurrently handles CNNIC’s overseas registration matters, said itmakes no sense to have overseas bodies managing domain namesfor Greater China.

“Right now with dot-coms, there is no dispute resolutionorganization in Asia. It’s ironic. It’s a disrespect to the IP(Internet Protocol) rights and the people here,” said C-DN’sCEO, John Huang.

CNNIC said it has come together with other authorities inGreater China including those in Macau, Hong Kong and Taiwan toformulate uniform rules regarding the management of Chinesedomain names.

But legal experts are skeptical about CNNIC’s effectivenessin tackling the problem of cybersquatting, where people stake aclaim on the Internet to a prominent name in the hope ofselling it later.

“They are not even trying to help. Their attitude is: go tocourt because we are not going to deal with it,” Janice Wingoof Baker McKenzie told Reuters.